Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus for performing processing of sheets and to a method of controlling the printing apparatus.
Description of the Related Art
There is a requirement in known printing apparatus for a plurality of different output matters to be sequentially formed and handled as a single bundle.
For example, a case in which a head office and a plurality of branch offices exist and in which printing is handled in the head office, a document for each branch office is formed and those documents are delivered on a branch office unit basis is now considered. In such a case, the contents of the document are specialized for every branch office.
More specifically speaking, for example, the following cases are now considered: a case where a head office and branch offices A, B, and C exist; and a case where there are documents D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, and L and the aforementioned documents are delivered to individual branch offices, as follows.                Branch office A: D, E, F        Branch office B: G, H        Branch office C: I, J, K, L        
In the print center provided in the head office, the nine kinds of documents D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, and L in total which are delivered for every branch office mentioned above are printed by a digital printer disposed in the print center. However, generally, the documents are continuously output for every branch office, for efficiency reasons, at the time of sorting delivery destinations D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, and L.
That is, for example, the documents D, E, and F whose delivery destination is the branch office A are continuously processed. When the process as mentioned above is not executed, for example, if the documents were output in order such as D, E, G, H, and F or the like, the documents whose delivery destination is the branch office B exist mixedly in the documents for delivery to the branch office A. In such a case, before delivery, the user has to execute such a process that the print-target data G and H for delivery to the branch office B are removed from the output matters.
Such an operation is not only troublesome but there is also a risk of inviting a human error or the like and it is extremely inefficient. The necessity that the documents for each delivery destination are continuously output is based on the reasons as mentioned above. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-150204 discloses such a print system that one document is received as one job and output matters are sorted every job and ejected.
An object to continuously form different kinds of output matters to a plurality of delivery destinations by using the digital printer and a convenience which is thus obtained are as disclosed in the related art. However, in the case as mentioned above, when considering efficiently achieving the object, a still further problem exists when convenience is improved.
The above example will be further specifically described.
It is now assumed that documents D, E, and F were output to the branch office A serving as a delivery destination, documents G and H were output to the branch office B, and documents I, J, K, and L were output to the branch office C in this order by the digital printer, respectively. The output matters are stacked in an ejecting unit of the digital printer in order of D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, and L.
In this state, since the documents have been continuously output for every delivery destination, such a case that the output matters for another delivery destination exist mixedly in the printed matters for every delivery destination as mentioned in the related art does not occur.
However, if the nine documents D to L were uniformly stacked in the ejecting unit, when the stacked output matters are sorted on a delivery destination unit basis, the user cannot easily recognize a boundary portion between the documents.
Therefore, the user has to execute such a troublesome operation that he has to carefully search for a boundary between the printed matters and a boundary portion between the delivery destinations while confirming the contents of the printed matters. In other words, even in the case where the printed matters to another delivery destination do not exist mixedly in the printed matters for each delivery destination, the operation to uniformly sort a bundle of printed matters which were uniformly stacked into the printed matters for each delivery destination is still accompanied with the difficult operation.
The digital printer has such a function that each time the output matters of one job are ejected, the output matters are shifted and ejected and such a sorting function that each time the output matters of one copy are ejected, the output matters are shifted and ejected as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-150204.
However, even in the case where the documents D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, and L to each delivery destination as mentioned above were output by using the sorting function of the digital printer, such a problem cannot be solved. All of the documents can be ejected in the shifted state by using the sorting function. In such a case, such a fear that the boundary portion between the documents is erroneously sorted can be reduced. However, it is still difficult to discriminate the delivery destinations. That is, although the documents have to be sorted as follows in accordance with the inherent object.                Branch office A: D, E, F        Branch office B: G, H        Branch office C: I, J, K, L        
Since a distinction of a branch office unit is unclear, there is a possibility that the documents are erroneously sorted as follows.                Branch office A: D, E        Branch office B: F, G, H, I        Branch office C: J, K, L        
The foregoing error is merely an example. There is also another possibility that due to a boundary between the delivery destinations being obscure in the bundle of stacked output matters, the documents to a certain branch office are erroneously sorted as an output matter bundle to a different branch office.
In such a situation, in order to correctly execute the sorting process for every delivery destination, the operator who executes the sorting process has to carefully execute the operation after he accurately recognized which documents should be delivered to which delivery destination. However, such an operation is difficult and it is presumed that a human error occurs easily.
Although the case where the printed matters are sorted from the head office to each branch office has been described as a specific example, many other similar cases exist. That is, as another example, there is a case where in the print center, individuals are made to correspond to a plurality of delivery destinations. The erroneous delivery of a printed matter including personal information should be avoided as much as possible.